Chapter 22 - THE THING MY BROTHER LOSTJonah stopped playing baseball.
Nobody made him.
That mattered.
His coach offered private training.
Grandma offered to drive.
Even I told him quitting because of guilt was not necessarily healthy.
He still stopped.
“I don’t know if I even like it,” he told me.
We were walking around a park near Grandma’s house during one of our supervised sibling visits.
“You played since you were four.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Fair.
“What do you like?”
He shrugged.
“Drawing.”
I almost laughed.
Jonah had filled notebooks with sketches since kindergarten.
My parents called it a hobby.
Baseball was the future.
“I’m bad at it.”
“You’re thirteen.”
“I’m bad for thirteen.”
“That’s allowed.”
He smiled.
Then his face changed.
“Dad said he ruined everything for me.”
“What?”
“He said if he hadn’t moved me after the crash, maybe the juvenile case would’ve been simpler.”
I stopped walking.
“He is not allowed to make you responsible for his decision.”
“He said he was trying to save me.”
“He was.”
Jonah looked confused.
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
I understood why he struggled with that.
Our family had always treated love like a defense.
I lied because I love you.
I controlled you because I love you.
I sacrificed her because I love you.
Nobody ever finished the sentence with:
And I was still wrong.
Jonah’s juvenile case did not disappear.
Because of his age, the legal process focused heavily on rehabilitation.
He had restrictions.
Counseling.
Restitution issues handled through adults and insurance.
His baseball future became irrelevant compared with whether he learned accountability.
One afternoon he asked if I would come to one of his therapy sessions.
I said no.
His face fell.
“Why?”
“Because you need a place where I’m not the person you’re trying to convince.”
He thought about it.
“Will you ever come?”
“Maybe later.”
For once, maybe was enough.
Then Jonah told me something surprising.
He had written Daniel Price a letter.
His therapist helped him.
Not asking forgiveness.
Not explaining.
Acknowledging.
He didn’t know whether Daniel would ever read it.
“That’s his choice,” I said.
Jonah nodded.
The words felt familiar.
I looked at Dad’s unopened letter in my bag.
For the first time, I wondered whether leaving it sealed forever might eventually become less about safety and more about refusing to let him exist as anything except the father who betrayed me.
May you like
I wasn’t ready to answer that.
But I had finally asked myself the question.
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